Blog Archives

Dolores O’Riordan, lead singer of Irish rock band The Cranberries, died suddenly on Monday. She was 46.

O’Riordan died in London, where she was recording, publicist Lindsey Holmes said.

“No further details are available at this time,” Holmes said, adding that the singer’s family was “devastated” by the news.

The first Cranberries song that I recall hearing was “Zombie” in August or September of 1994. I kinda liked it, but it got so incredibly overplayed in such a short time that to this day I almost cringe a little when I hear it. Overplayed so much that the warehouse I worked in at the time is burned into my memory and resurfaces every time I hear the song.

They came to dominate alternative radio in the mid-to-late 90s. I was never a big fan of theirs, but I did like some of their songs.

“Dreams” was pretty good, although it was overplayed a bit as well –

“Linger” is decent enough, it’s good enough that I don’t automatically change radio stations when I hear it –

Radio stations couldn’t get enough of that one, either. the song just, uh, hung around for a long time.

But I would have to say the song I liked best was “Ridiculous Thoughts.” Don’t know why, just a catchy tune. Good opening, and she belts it out fairly well at the end, too –

Rest In Peace, Dolores. Didn’t know you well, but sad to see you’re gone.

It’s well into the month and I haven’t Rocktobered once. Things have been hectic here at the station…. nothing really wrong, just very busy. However, in the spirit of lateness, here is some late night music –

And now a word from our sponsors and totally random celebrities, including two notorious for keeping late nights –

And now an obscure import to comply with the 4 A.M. public affairs broadcasting regulations –

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, one of my favorite comics writers was Gerard Jones. At the time, he was writing some really fun – and sometimes really different – stuff in the trio of Green Lantern-related books. He did some Batman work, which I could take or leave, and he worked on a Justice League comic (at first with a co-writer and later solo) that was pretty funny. He was clearly liberal, but he was a lot more intelligent than most lightweight armchair libs writing comics, and even went against the liberal line at times. Mostly, his work was just smarter than the usual by-the-numbers crap that was and still is being published.

His work seemed to take a dip around 1993, though, and in a few years he didn’t seem to be writing much for comics anymore, if at all. I believe part of that had to do with clashes with editorial, which was undergoing changes at the time. I saw his name again in the local newspaper’s comics page around 2000 – he was writing a Pokemon strip.

The song was sampled in 1994 by Warren G and Nate Dogg in “Regulate” [mildly NSFW]-

A completely and totally 100% absolutely true and smooth account of how this came about was related on the internet series Yacht Rock [also a bit NSFW]. And “Hollywood Steve,” the host of the show, is a real life music critic.

McDonald’s version is sometimes listed as a cover of Jackson’s song, but there are differences. Although sharing credit with the writers of Jackson’s song, McDonald does get a songwriting credit on his version.

Michael’s old friends in Steely Dan had their own run-in with this sort of thing. From 1977, their song “Black Cow” –

Turns out The Dan weren’t happy with Tariq and Gunz sampling the song and causing Walter and Donald some difficulties. Peter Gunz discusses it here (a little NSFW language in there).

Not long after that, Tatyana Ali released her 1998 single “Daydreamin'” (lots of apostrophes in music, apparently), where Tariq and Gunz sampled themselves sampling “Black Cow” in some kind of recursive loop and rapped on it –

One of the first mashups to go big was Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” crossed with Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” circa 1983 –

By the 90s, mashups were becoming quite the thing, and during the 2000s (especially with everyone having a computer and YouTube coming online), mashups exploded. Most are crap, but some are really good, such as this Daft Punk/Adele mix –

DJs and home remixers began digging up old classics to mix with more modern songs –

There was a real video for that song, but it’s gone now. Had a neat Escher ending, not to mention Robert Smith getting slowly eaten by the Spider Man (no, not that Spider-Man).

Disco is a prime fountain of pure unrefined mashup material. Especially when mixed with the most incongruous types of music –

Speaking of incongruities, this takes the cake right out of the rain –

It works so well!

Dance music goes well with more classically-influenced works –

Who knew Enya could spit rhymes like that?

If you feel like your childhood has been violated, your teen years touched inappropriately, your college years…. well, something involving microaggressions and a rape hoax, I’m sure… then this song is dedicated to you.

Time to put the needle on the record. No sucker Djs, just two turntables and a microphone on the avenue by Radio City with a transistor.

Wdydfae commented on the last post about his memories of radio –

My inchoate fragments of radio memories don’t coalesce into a particular story. Radio wasn’t a big part of my childhood, as far as I can remember, unless I was riding in someone’s car and it happened to be playing.

…Then it moves into adulthood, and radio was in another country and language. Basically, lousy radio selection–just not a radio culture. Then I realized the radio riches I had left behind, with at least a channel for just about any genre you could want. So, belatedly I appreciated that the radio world of the States is vibrant–lot of stuff out there, and a whole way of talking, presenting yourself, presenting sound, pacing things.

Kicking off with Steely Dan’s classic”FM” in spectacular style…. From the YouTube channel of the Empire State Building, followed by a big block of tunes to crank up to 11 –

“On October 29, 2015, the 50th anniversary of the installation of a Master FM Antenna on the top of the Empire State Building, the global landmark synchronized its world-famous tower lights to Steely Dan’s 1978 smash ‘FM (No Static At All).'”

Bonus points if you saw a young Geordi La Forge or maybe Tom & Jerry in there.